Wednesday, November 07, 2012

David Grove: Condensed

Others have posted many of Grove's most famous works in recent days. Here's something a little less well known by the artist: a series of illustrations Grove created for Reader's Digest Condensed Books in 1969.

Greg Newbold has posted a tribute to David Grove with some terrific art, anecdotes and details of Grove's painting technique. Click here to have a look.

The story, "No Highway" had been filmed many years previous to this Readers Digest adaptation. Also known as "No Highway in the Sky", it starred Jimmy Stewart as Mr. Honey, an eccentric aeronautical engineer who has calculated that the wings on the plane he is traveling on are at risk of coming apart. The film also features Glynis Johns as the sympathetic airline stewardess and Marlene Dietrich as a movie star on the same flight.

Interestingly, in Grove's illustrations, the engineer has been completely designed from scratch, as has the stewardess, no doubt both models Grove employed to pose for his photo reference. Yet he's clearly retained Marlene Dietrich's likeness as the film star! Curious, huh?

I am very interested in the people's opinion of Mr. Grove's process used for the Reader's Digest pieces. With what is the line work created? And were they created on a single support or two and then combine in printing? Any thoughts on that?

I really love the "unfinished" look effect. *sigh* reminds me of Reader's Digest 80's and below editions that my mom used to buy for cheap at a local 2nd hand bookstore..those were the days. Nice post Mr. Peng!

In March of this year, my co-hosts and I were privileged to conduct an interview with Grove for our podcast, SiDEBAR.

Grove was fantastic and self-deprecating in regarding his place in illustration.

Of what he said that day, there was one thing that rang true in my artistic path:

He said that he spent so much time looking at other artists like Peak, English and McGinnis in the magazines of the day that eventually there came a point where he wanted to find his own voice and "escape the tyranny of published excellence".

So well put.

Take a listen here:http://sidebar.typepad.com/my_weblog/2012/03/david-grove.html